d) Mexico cannot satisfy PLCAA’s proximate-cause requirement

contrast, protected “seller[s]” include companies “engaged in the business of selling firearms at

wholesale or retail” and “licensed” as firearms “dealer[s]” under federal law. Id. § 7903(6)(B)

(incorporating definition of firearms “dealer[s]” set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(11)).

This case is clearly a “qualified civil action” presumptively barred by the PLCAA. First,

Mexico is a covered “person” because it falls within the defined category of “any governmental

entity.” Id. § 7903(3) (emphasis added). Congress easily could have excluded foreign sovereigns

from this broad definition, but it did not. Second, the complaint alleges that defendants are either

“manufacturers” or “seller[s]” that have obtained federal “license[s]” to manufacture or sell

firearms. Compl. ¶¶ 31-41, 54. And third, all of Mexico’s alleged injuries flow from the

“widespread epidemic of gun violence” committed in Mexico by the deliberate acts of third-

party criminals. Id. ¶ 449. Thus, all of the “damages” sought in this case “result[] from” the

“criminal or unlawful misuse of” firearms by “third part[ies].” 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A).

Finally, as explained further below, there is no merit to Mexico’s claim that the PLCAA

does not apply because the alleged harms occurred outside of the United States. By its plain

terms, the PLCAA applies to all suits brought in U.S. courts against U.S. defendants for conduct

in the U.S., regardless of where the alleged harms occurred.

C. No PLCAA exception applies to any of Mexico’s claims.

The broad immunity conferred by the PLCAA is subject to narrowly defined exceptions

in 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5). Mexico tries to avail itself of three of these exceptions, but fails. The

only way it can do so is by construing the exceptions so broadly—and so contrary to their plain

meaning—that they would swallow the immunity Congress enacted the PLCAA to provide.

1. The predicate exception does not apply.

The so-called “predicate exception” allows a manufacturer or seller of firearms to be sued

if it “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of

[firearms], and the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.” 15

U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A)(iii) (emphasis added).

The statute provides examples of the type of firearms-specific statutes Congress

considered “applicable to” the sale and marketing of firearms. It identifies laws:

 Requiring manufacturers and sellers to keep “record[s] . . . with respect to [firearms].” Id. § 7903(5)(A)(iii)(I).

 Prohibiting manufacturers and sellers from aiding, abetting, or conspiring with any person in making a “false or fictitious . . . statement” that is “material to the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of a [firearm].” Id.

 Prohibiting manufacturers and sellers from aiding, abetting, or conspiring with anyone “to sell or otherwise dispose of a [firearm], knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that the actual buyer of the [firearm] was prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm.” Id. § 7903(5)(A)(iii)(II).

To satisfy the predicate exception based on an “applicable” firearms law, a plaintiff must

show that a defendant knowingly violated a state or federal statute that “appli[es]” specifically to

the “sale or marketing of [firearms].” Id. § 7903(5)(A)(iii). The statute does not allow claims

based on generally applicable laws such as public nuisance and consumer-protection statutes,

because those are the types of claims that the PLCAA was enacted to foreclose.

a) The predicate exception recognizes only firearms-specific statutes.

The plain text, structure, and context of the PLCAA show that the predicate exception

applies only to claims based on firearms-specific laws, not laws of general applicability. Read in

isolation, there are only two textually permissible readings of a “statute applicable to the sale or

marketing of” firearms. 15 U.S.C. § 7903(5)(A)(iii). First, it could refer broadly to all laws that

are “[c]apable of being applied” to firearms sales and marketing. Applicable, BLACK’S LAW

DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019). Or, more narrowly, the term “applicable” could mean—especially

in reference to “a rule, regulation, law, etc.”—“affecting or relating to a particular person, group,